How to visit NY SWOG while at work

***UPDATE***
This blog has been updated since I first posted it! See below.

Ever since the internet hit offices, I've wondered why exactly people are allowed to surf the web and get paid for it. If I dragged a TV into my office and flipped it on, it wouldn't go over too well, even if I were just watching the news. Yet the internet is in a strange liminal zone between utility and, well, un-utility: one could use it for work, so it would be difficult to ban completely, even though it is often used not to work (see the Onion artcle "48-Hour Internet Outage Plunges Nation Into Productivity")

I will add that as a social worker I use the internet all the time to find very valuable resources and services for clients, so if I were to look the WWW my productivity would surely decrease.

All of this is to say that I don't exactly want to endorse surfing the net at work, but if you do, why not read a stimulating, entertaining, and informative blog about social work issues?

HOWEVER - guess what: it turns out that all blogs are blocked from my work computer - because blogs are inherently unnecessary for social work, I suppose. Several readers have told me the same thing about their work servers, so I want to let you know that you can (probably) still access NY SWOG at work. Just follow these steps:

1. Go to a blog feed site like Google Reader
   
2. Get a ID and password, or use your Gmail account if you have one
3. When you get to the main Google Reader page, click the button that says "Add a subscription" and type in or paste: nyswog.blogspot.com
4. Click "add", and you are now a subscriber! You can go there any time and see if NY SWOG has new posts.
   

(Obviously this only works if your work lets you log on to things like Google Reader/Gmail. I can, so hopefully you can too.)

Enjoy...but not too much. Now get back to work!


UPDATE - I posted this last night, went to sleep, woke up, and went to work. I decided to see if I could see this post on Google Reader, and found that between yesterday and today, Google Reader has been blocked at my workplace!

I can see only 3 possible explanations:

1. Some higher up is reading NY SWOG and responding accordingly
2. By checking if I could use Google Reader at work yesterday, I somehow got it flagged and then blocked
3. It is just a strange coincidence

I will let readers decide. Of course, this only applies to my agency, so maybe you can still get on... for now...